‘If they could!’ Samson assented. ‘Abel Eeddy was a bragger and a boaster from his cradle days.’ ‘That’s where it is,’ cried Mrs. Mountain, in a tone which implied that Samson had made a discovery of the first importance, and that this discovery unexpectedly confirmed her own argument. ‘Let ‘em have the least little bit of a chance for a brag, and where be you?’ ‘You might trust ‘em to tek advantage on it if they had it,’ said her husband. ‘Of course you might,’ said she, with warmth, ‘and that’s why I’m fearful on it.’ ‘Fearful o’ what?’ demanded Samson. ‘O’ these here scornful fine-gentleman ways as’ll be a thorn in our Joe’s side as long as he lives, poor little chap, unless we put him in the way to combat again ‘em.’ ‘Ah!’ Samson growled, suddenly enlightened. ‘I see now what thee beest drivin’ at. Now, you take a straight sayin’ from me, Mary Ann. I’ll have no fine-mouthed, false-natur’d corruption i’ my household. If the Reddys choose to breed up that young imp of theirn to drawl fine and to talk smooth above his station--let ‘em.’ ‘Well, Samson,’ returned Mrs. Mountain, who knew by long experience when her husband was malleable, ‘you know best, and you’re the master here, as it’s on’y fit and becomin’ an’ in the rightful nature o’ things as you should be.’ The first effect of the oil of flattery seemed to be to harden him. ‘I be, and I mean to be,’ he answered, with added surliness. ‘If the speech and the clothes and the vittles as have been good enough for me ain’t good enough for any young upstart as may follow after me, it _is_ a pity.’ Mary Ann kept silence and looked meek. Samson growled and bullied a little, and wore the airs of a dictator. By and by a serving-maid came in and began to arrange the table for tea, and a little later a boy and a girl stole noiselessly into the room. ‘Joe,’ said Samson sternly, ‘come here!’ The boy approached him with evident dread. ‘What’s this I hear about thee and that young villin of a Reddy?’ ‘I don’t know, father,’ the boy answered. ‘I heard him makin’ a boast this afternoon,’ said Samson, rolling bullyingly in his arm-chair, ‘as you and him had fowt last holidays, and as he gi’en you a hiding.’ Joe said nothing, but looked as if he expected the experience to be repeated. ‘Now, what ha’ you got to say to that?’ demanded his father. ‘Why,’ began Joe, edging back a little, ‘he’s bigger nor I be, an’ six months o’der.’ ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ cried Samson, reaching out a hand and seizing the little fellow by the jacket, ‘do you mean to tell me as you allowed to have enough to that young villin?’ ‘No,’ Joe protested. ‘That I niver did. It was the squire as parted us.’ ‘You remember this,’ said his father, shaking him to emphasise the promise. ‘If ever you agree to tek a hiding from a Reddy you’ve got one to follow on from me. D’ye hear?’ ‘Yes, father.’ ‘Tek heed as well as hear. D’ye hear?’ ‘Yes, father.’